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together in unity. They drop every embittered thought, and forget that they once were foes. Perhaps their crumbling boues mix as they moulder; and thoſe who, while they lived, ſtood, aloof in irreconcileable variance, here fall into mutual embraces, and even incorporate with each other in the grave.———Oh! that we might learn from theſe friendly aſhes, not to perpetuate the memory of injuries; not to foment the fever of reſentment; nor cheriſh the turbulence of paſſion; that there may be as little animoſity and diſagreement in the land of the living, as there is in the congregation of the dead!——
—One is tempted to exclaim againſt the king of terrors, and call him capriciouſly cruel. He ſeems, by beginning at the wrong end of the regiſter, to have inverted the laws of nature. Paſſing over the couch of decrepit age, he has nipped infancy in its bud; blaſted youth in its bloom; and torn up manhood in its full maturity.—Terrible indeed are theſe providences, yet not unſearchable the counſels:
For us they ſicken, and for us they die*[1].
Such ſtrokes muſt not only grieve the relatives, but ſurpriſe the whole neighbour-
- ↑ *Night Thoughts.
